“The wound is the place where the Light Enters You…”  – Rumi

I’ve come to understand – this is a big lesson for me – that we are all broken in some way, we all have battles to fight, fears to overcome, wounds that cut us deep.

Mine are no better or worse than yours.

We all need to heal. I love Rumi’s idea, that the wound is the place where the Light enters us, and it is the light that helps me to heal.

Rose Kennedy, who knew so much tragedy in her long life, said in an interview that she did not agree that time heals all wounds. The mind covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens.

“But it is never gone,” she said.

I believe we are all different, as are our wounds. Wounds remind me that the past is real.

Some of mine have healed, some never will. I will never get over the loss of two children, nor do I wish to.  Every thought of them is a stab in the hart, then a path to gratitude.

I have a daughter and a granddaughter and a wife and a life that I love.

The Light enters me every day…

Decades after these children died, I am now the only human on the earth who remembers them, thinks of them, knows the dates of their death. Ben and Emma, I’ve never said their names out loud before.

Some wounds ought not to completely heal. I don’t want to forget them, but time does heal my wounds, it just doesn’t make them disappear.

It feels good to do that, to understand the universality of wounds. They are not an aberration, they are life, just like death.

There is something comforting in knowing we all hurt at times.  We can argue about almost everything, but not about that.

There is something comforting in knowing my wounds don’t all have to heal, I can live them and drink from their truth.

That is called life.

I see that everything is a gift, and Rumi is wise.

The wound is the place where the Light has entered me and helped me to heal. I know now that I learn the most from sorrow and disappointment, and find the most joy in simple life – walking, reading, writing, taking photos, loving, doing some good.